Samuel P. Huntington

Samuel Phillips Huntington (born April 18, 1927) is a political scientist known for his analysis of the relationship between the military and the civil government, his investigation of coup d'etats, and his thesis that the central political actors of the 21st century will be civilizations rather than nation-states. More recently, he garnered widespread attention for his analysis of threats posed to the United States by modern-day immigration. He is a professor at Harvard University. Huntington came to prominence as a scholar in the 1960s with the publication of Political Order in Changing Societies, a work which challenged the conventional view of modernization theorists that economic and social progress would bring about stable democracies in recently decolonized countries.

Quotes

• "It is my hypothesis that the fundamental source of conflict in this new world will not be primarily ideological or primarily economic. The great divisions among humankind and the dominating source of conflict will be cultural. Nation states will remain the most powerful actors in world affairs, but the principal conflicts of global politics will occur between nations and groups of different civilizations. The clash of civilizations will dominate global politics. The fault lines between civilizations will be the battle lines of the future."
• "The West won the world not by the superiority of its ideas or values or religion but rather by its superiority in applying organized violence. Westerners often forget this fact, non-Westerners never do."